Good powerful Linux text IDE running on Linux

Question

Problem - I like old goods;) I have an old laptop, which I just LOVE. Of course, he runs Xorg, and it's fast. But Intellij IDEA is still slow.

Thought of emacs but never been used. Is emacs too complicated? Going to work in text mode under X in many windows and creating some scripts to automate things.

Answer 1

All three Java / Universal IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, and Netbeans) are written in Java and will be slow on older (to identify old?) Laptops. I would not want to run any of them on one of my three-year ThinkPads, but I am not opposed to running Netbeans on my 2-year-old MacBook. I have not tried IntelliJ on a MacBook, but I use it when working on the new Thinkpad, and it is not so fast. However, it can still be used.

There is a world of differences between all IDEs such as IntelliJ and a text editor, even one that is extensible like Emacs. Emacs will use fewer resources and feel more responsive, but partly because it does less and partly because its main engine is native code, not Java. In addition, he has a 20 year setup behind him.

I prefer to use Emacs as an editor if I just want to twist the code - as soon as I move from writing code to the stage of debugging, refactoring and tuning, I will also use the IDE, because they usually do at least some tasks such as debugging is better. This should not be surprising, considering that you are talking about a text editor (on steroids, though) compared to a full-fledged development environment.

Basic Emacs aren't that hard to learn. If you want to write scripts, learning the movements and basic text editing commands should make you work and work pretty quickly; complexity arises when you delve deeper into the editor and begin to use many additional packages and advanced features built directly into the editor. The learning curve will be steeper than, say, gedit, but it is quite feasible if you admit that it is a completely different beast from the IDE (a more powerful editor with fewer hands), and it does everything in its own way.

Should I Learn Emacs? I don’t know - if you want, then yes. If you just want a more flexible, but essentially basic text editor, look at alternative programmer editors. Many of them are easier to learn than Emacs and VIM, but not necessarily as powerful.

Answer 2

I have been using vim for a while, mainly when I write in Ruby (I still use IntelliJ IDEA, as well as Eclipse when writing AS3 or Java). I recently stumbled upon a really brilliant plugin package called "janus". It combines all the essential plugins into one easy installation. The end product would be similar to OSM Textmate.

You can get "janus" from it github repo here https://github.com/carlhuda/janus . Hope this helps!

Answer 3

When you say "text-based", do you mean "works in the terminal"? In this case, the choice is obvious (in my opinion) - vim is the best choice and is available for almost all Linux distribution in the world. It has built-in syntax highlighting and padding for Java, and you can use plugins like Taglist and some others mentioned earlier on SO to give it a more modern IDE feel.

Answer 4

You should check vim + eclim ( http://eclim.org/ ). Eclim is a vim plugin that communicates with a headless instance of an eclipse over a socket. You get a vim text editor + advanced refactoring, completion, etc. Eclipse

Answer 5

Let me add that the Emacs client for eclim is currently under development, but what is already available looks very nice. Check out this link for more details:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsEclim

Greetings

  -
 José A. Romero L.
 escherdragon at gmail
 "We who cut mere stones must always be envisioning cathedrals."
 (Quarry worker creed)

Answer 6

If you want to become a professional Java programmer, I would suggest you buy a new laptop and run IntelliJ IDEA / Eclipse. Any modern laptop should be able to run these IDEs.

The performance you get with IDE-esp with things like refactoring makes the money spent on a laptop worth it.

While you can use vim + ctags as a minimal java editor (with completion), they will never come close to the power of the IDE when building real-world applications.

The IDE offers all sorts of tools for generating build scripts for integration with frameworks (e.g. Spring / hibernate) to make your life easier.

Like you, I don't like to run a large bloated IDE on my machine. But you know what? After you launch your heavily bloated IDE, which eats up 300 megabytes of RAM, you will find that you are working much faster.

Answer 7

Well, after reading a few answers, I decided to answer my question and explain this idea.

The main idea behind this is a new way of developing software. Imagine opening a browser and loading your fast and easy IDE. It loads in a matter of seconds, compiles a 300-module project in a matter of seconds on a powerful server (not on your mailbox), even provides pair programming when you can edit the same file in real time.

This is too difficult to implement. But this is the future that I believe in. However, the textual approach is quite simple to implement. Install emacs in some powerful box and you're ready to go. Of course, few developers will not be able to edit the same file at the same time. But it starts and is much easier to implement. Compiling on a multiprocessor multi-core box will be faster. I think I can collect this in a few hours to try. Just offer me something really cool for text mode. Some (java) development plugins for emacs / vim or at least articles that describe something like this.